1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus, and in particular, to a liquid ejecting apparatus that enables a liquid, which is ejected from a liquid ejecting head as a waste liquid, to be received by a liquid receptor, which is transported to a position opposite a nozzle forming surface of the liquid ejecting head.
2. Related Art
An ink jet type printer (hereinafter, referred to as “printer”) is known as an example of liquid ejecting apparatuses that eject a liquid onto a target. This printer ejects ink (liquid), which is supplied to a recording head (liquid ejecting head), from nozzles at a nozzle forming surface of the recording head toward a recording sheet (target), thereby performing printing. In such a printer, if ink is not ejected from the nozzles for a long time, the surface of an ink meniscus at each nozzle may be dried, and poor ink ejection may occur. For this reason, in such a printer, when printing is not performed, so-called flushing is performed so as to forcibly eject ink from the nozzles on the basis of a control signal unrelated to printing.
A serial or lateral type printer is known in which a recording head ejects ink while reciprocating along a transport plane of a recording sheet when printing is performed. In this printer, when printing is not performed, the recording head moves to a flushing position out of the recording sheet, and flushing is performed toward a cap or a flushing box provided at the flushing position. However, in a line head type printer, in which a recording head is provided over the entire sheet width in a direction perpendicular to a transport direction of a recording sheet on a transport path of the recording sheet without moving along the transport plane of the recording sheet, the recording head cannot be moved to the flushing position out of the recording sheet.
In general, in the line head type printer, a sheet-like ink receiving member (liquid receptor) receiving ink ejected from the recording head is transported to a position opposite the nozzle forming surface of the recording head with timing different from a transport timing of the recording sheet by an exclusive-use transport mechanism of the ink receiving member (for example, see JP-A-2006-272554 (FIGS. 14 and 15)).
In the printer described in JP-A-2006-272554, the recording sheet is transported from an upstream side to a downstream side along the transport plane of the recording head parallel to the nozzle forming surface by an endless transport belt (target transport unit), and ink is ejected for printing when the recording sheet passes below the nozzle forming surface. A pair of left and right ring-shaped bodies (mobile members) having endless chains are provided on the left and right sides of the transport belt such that a part of a circular movement path thereof overlaps the transport path of the recording sheet by the transport belt. The sheet-like ink receiving member (liquid receptor) is supported in a stretched state between both ring-shaped bodies through an elastically deformable wire-like connection member (support member). When the ink receiving member circularly moves by circular movement of the ring-shaped bodies and passes through a position opposite the nozzle forming surface of the recording head, the ink receiving member is located at a position opposite the nozzle forming surface to receive ink ejected from the nozzles of the recording head for flushing.
The ink receiving member based on circular movement of the ring-shaped bodies receives waste ink ejected from the recording head when passing through the position opposite the nozzle forming surface, and returns to the original position (standby position) by further circular movement. However, since the transport velocity is constant during circular movement, it is necessary to increase the number of liquid receptors circularly moving in order to cope with frequent flushing or an increase in size of the printer. For this reason, the configuration becomes complicated. It is difficult to cope with frequent flushing or an increase in size of the printer by circular movement of a single ink receiving member.